Personal Initiatic Therapy

The solo exhibition initiatory therapy (lat. Personare through sound = lat. Initiare enter = into something that inaugurate), founded by Charles Fried Graf Dürckheim , is a part of the respiratory therapy as self-awareness and self-help . As a form of therapy, it is represented in the umbrella organization for breathing therapy AFA - Working and Research Association for Atempflege eV.

origin

According to the idea of ​​the psychotherapist and Zen Buddhist Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, "initiatic experience" - Dürckheim speaks of the experience of being - is to be understood as the beginning of an "initiatic path": an impulse to bring into the world what someone has experienced transcendentally . Only then does someone become a "person".

A distinction is made between the following levels of staff:

• Vorpersonal - corresponds to the instinctual, natural integration into a collective
• personal - corresponds to the individuation in the sense of Carl Gustav Jung
• transpersonal - corresponds to the deep experience of the transcendent with the resulting responsibility

general characteristics

In Personal Initiatic Therapy (PIT), Dürckheim merges several psychological directions, especially the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung, but also elements from Alfred Adler , Wilhelm Reich and Fritz Perls ' Gestalt therapy . This psychological basis is supplemented by the physical introspection. The PIT is initially about the development of an "organ of attention and the ability to feel" for the bodily depth experience , which is described as tone events .

PIT addresses people as a whole, healthy things start in the cell . This recovery should prove itself in everyday life as well as in social interaction. Motto: learn to live. In this sense, impulses are set in the organization of the day, in dealing with others, in encounters with oneself and in “learning to feel yourself”. The more a person becomes a person, the more freely the breath flows.

Methods

Any form of exercise can be practiced from the initiatic approach. Basic elements are the personal body therapy developed by Dürckheim as well as breathing and voice work.

According to Dürckheim, personal body and respiratory therapy only works if “the body that I have” (worldly component) and the “body that I am” ( transcendent component) are seen as a unity of physical, mental and spiritual expression. Breathing and physical exercises solve the blockages in the body that are responsible for various pathological developments. The newly gained body awareness lets the person mature, he becomes a unity as a human-spirit-being.

Recurring forms of therapy in the individual educational institutions are also:

• Depth psychology
• Dream work
• meditation
• Gestalt therapy
• Role play
• Systemic constellations

education

Training as a PIT therapist takes place in specialized schools. If the training center is recognized by the AFA as a teaching institute, it lasts around four years. It is also a practical part of the part-time study course “ Complementary Therapy ” with a Bachelor / Master of Science degree from Steinbeis University Berlin .

Areas of application

The PIT according to Dürkheim is potentially used in all medical and social institutions, especially in rehab centers, lung hospitals and psychosomatic clinics. It proves to be helpful in kindergartens and in youth and handicapped work as well as in old people's homes and in accompanying the seriously ill and dying.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ AFA® Working and Research Association for Atempflege eV (founded 1958)

Web links

• BVA Professional Association for Respiratory Education and Respiratory Therapy eV
• Respiratory Association of Switzerland (Swiss professional association for respiratory therapy)
• Professional association of the respiratory therapists of the experiential breath according to Prof. Ilse Middendorf eV
• Professional association of Austrian breathing teachers
• Austrian professional association for integrative breathing